The Girl with the Grey Ribbon
by YellowGlue
Summary: "Why do you wear the ribbon around your neck, little B?" He asked in his quietest and most patient voice. Bella Marie couldn't bring herself to share such a sad secret with the boy who made her heart beat harder in her chest. a twist on an old story and little happy halloween love, because i missed them.


**this is from a few years ago, and, but, well, this is the day for it :-)**

**lovelybrutal is my tresor-coeur beta-love baby. I benumber reading over your notes on this in the library and smiling so hard. thank you for your love. je t'aime toujours et pour tous les jours, dans tous les sens. je fais.**

**I do not own ****Twilight****, or **_**Enter From The East**_**, or the original campfire story this is twisted from. Any and all mistakes, little B, and writing that's three-ish years old, are mine.**

**happy halloween, loves.**

* * *

Bella Marie wore a little grey ribbon around her neck on the first day of kindergarten.

She wore the same pretty ribbon, tied in the same pretty bow on the second day.

And on the third.

And the fourth.

Every day, regardless of the weather or the colour of her dress, the neatly tied strand of spring-thunderstorm-cloud silk, never left her neck.

Kindergarten passed and after summer vacation, the grey ribbon returned with Bella Marie in the fall and remained perfectly in place throughout all of first grade.

And second.

And third.

While some of the children at school whispered behind her back about how strange it was, others asked her about it openly.

Bella Marie shrugged their curious questions away with a most sincere smile.

The little grey bow had been tied around her neck for longer than she could remember. She'd always worn it. Some of her earliest memories in fact, were of Sister Esme and Sister Renee, the only parents she'd ever known, gravely warning her against removing it.

Though she was still very young, she was more than well aware of the consequences of untying the ribbon. A plus B was simple logic in her mind and loosing the grey silk was something she had no intention of doing, or allowing, ever.

Her best friend, Mary Alice didn't mind so much. She tied ribbons around her neck sometimes as well, to match Bella Marie. Some days she wore a light honeysuckle yellow one, others, a soft plumbago blue.

Mary Alice never asked to trade with her friend, which little Bella was most thankful for. She didn't like saying _no_ to people she cared so much about, but she would most certainly have told Mary Alice just that. Sorry, she couldn't trade ribbons.

Edward Cullen didn't mind so much either. He lived down the street from Saint Anne's, the orphanage Bella Marie was raised in. They were the same age and even though they hadn't made friends until kindergarten, he'd known her since she was a baby.

The flawlessly tied bit of grey fabric never bothered Edward. In fact, it had quite the opposite effect on him than it had on most everyone else in her life. He was unremittingly captivated by the ribbon and he thought little Bella Marie was the cutest girl he'd ever seen, anywhere.

Throughout fourth grade, they sat beside one another at lunchtime, across from Alec and Mary Alice, and they were partners on science projects, and book reports. Bella's inherent sweetness and shy-spoken nature swept Edward right off his young feet. The first time she let her soul-deep, trust-seeking eyes find his, he knew without a doubt that he was hers and she was his.

After a summertime mostly apart, when they only were able to see one another very little because Sister Renee and Sister Esmewere rather protective of Bella Marie, the boy and girl were back in school once again, as fifth graders this time.

Everyone looked at the girl and whispered about her, like everyone always did, and sure enough, inches above her peach-Push-Pop-coloured dress, perfectly in place just below two dark auburn pigtails, the strand of grey silk was still in a beautiful bow around little Bella's neck.

At recess, Edward noticed it was almost silver in the sunlight.

The older they grew, the more fascinated he felt with the ribbon and the girl underneath it. He spent hours in their classrooms, admiring Bella Marie from his desk, a few behind and to the left of her. He wondered about the feel of the soft rainy grey colour against the skin of her neck, about how it might feel between his fingertips.

It made him think of birthday parties, of special-perfect gifts, waiting to be unwrapped.

Secretly, he wanted to write his name on the ribbon, or better, on Bella Marie herself. He wanted her to be his special-perfect gift.

The summer before they started high school, with granted permission from Sister Esme and Sister Renee, little Bella spent more time than she ever had off school grounds with Edward, Alec and Mary Alice. She made other friends through them and the more she showed her loving keepers that she and her friends could be trusted, and were good kids, the more freedom she was granted.

From the skating rink to the arcade, in and out of Whitlock's Ice Cream Shop, everywhere Edward went, Bella found herself wanting to follow. She felt safe with him, more than she'd ever even known she could feel. When she was afraid sometimes at night, in the quiet and the dark, of the secret that she carried, Edward was where she wanted to be.

Like home, she guessed. What home must have felt like.

One night, a few blocks from the movie theater, full of courage and curious adoration of his own, Edward touched the side of his pinkie finger to the side of Bella's.

Her tummy tickled like a ferris-wheel dip and he felt it.

She smiled and it made him smile, and he held her hand in his all the way to the side door of St. Anne's.

Little Bella swayed slightly, from her heels to her toes and back again, glancing at Edward in the soft street lamp light. He was a little taller than her already; she had to look up to find his blue eyes.

He was looking at her like she made the sunlight bright.

"Why do you wear the ribbon around your neck, little B?" He asked in his quietest and most patient voice.

Bella Marie couldn't bring herself to share such a sad secret with the boy who made her heart beat harder in her chest. She shrugged instead and looked up, giving him her eyes once more, and her most sincere smile.

Just being with him helped her feel brave.

"Maybe I'll tell you about it," she offered, touching her pinkie to his the way he had touched hers half an hour or so before.

"Someday."

Edward smiled at her, satisfied with _someday_. He nodded and gave her hand a small squeeze, and told her _goodnight._

He was not planning to part from her anytime soon and wasn't interested in rushing the girl whose trust meant more to him than anything. The ribbon was obviously very important to her, for at least one reason or another, and she was very important to him.

It was his hidden hope that _someday_ Bella really would perhaps tell him about the little grey bow.

_Maybe_, even let him touch it.

_Maybe, just maybe -_

He almost couldn't bring himself to give words to the wish in the darkest corner of his imagination; it was so strong, but _maybe, someday..._

She might even let him untie it.

The thought filled him with such tenacious feelings he had to tuck it away to keep from acting on it without her express permission.

Through their freshman, sophomore and junior years, Edward paid attention instead to Bella Marie's smile, her hopes and dreams, and who she wanted to be when she grew up. She went back and forth between an ob-gyn and a pediatrician, knowing for sure only that since she couldn't make babies of her own due to her silken secret, she wanted to be a part of supporting and nurturing the gift of new life.

Edward's brilliance was multifaceted and it grew as he did. He knew he could be happy and successful anywhere, as long as she was by his side. His talents and ambition were secondary to his love. She came first. She fulfilled him.

Bella knew this, because Edward knew this, and because the closer they attached themselves, the more openly he spoke with her about his affection and allegiance.

His whispers against her bliss-blushed cheek of admiration and faith, forever and after, and of all the wholesome and wholehearted ways that he loved her, gave little Bella - who was not so little anymore, but a delicately curved and almost divinely soft young woman in the back seat of his '56 Impala - courage of her own to open up and speak with.

She shared with him too, quietly intoned promises and longings. She held his kind blue eyes when he tilted her head and sought hers out, and she told him in truth that she loved him too. Just the same as he loved her. With her whole heart. All the way through.

Their senior year was full of football games in the fall, sledding and ice-skating through the winter, and university preparation in the spring.

She cheered him on from the sidelines with white pompoms and joyful love in her eyes.

He held her hand and thumb-brushed her ecstatic tears away when she read her letter of ivy-league acceptance to Sister Esme and Sister Renee.

Though the silk ribbon remained around Bella's neck and always somewhere in Edward's mind, he continued to focus instead on the secret parts of herself that she shared with him. He cherished her little grey secret every bit as much as her most innocent honor and he was ever-patient with his beautiful true love.

The night of their prom, Bella Marie wore a smokey-grey silk dress that matched the ribbon. Edward tucked a small and white gardenia blossom behind her ear and was the happiest, proudest, and most genuinely honored boyfriend-best friend to ever attend a high school dance.

The slip of silver tempted Edward all evening. He dipped his face close to her neck as they slow danced, yearning quietly to touch her silk, to feel it with his lips, his palms, his fingertips.

The pattern of his breathing, the warmth of his hands on her back, through her dress, holding her so close, made Bella feel like flying.

So high.

So light she was sure she felt her feet leave the floor.

After all the dancing and the secretly-snuck champagne with Alec and Mary Alice, after the moonlit and star-bright walk through Bella Marie's favorite and most in-bloom part of Saint Raymond's garden -

after the sounds she made when she was tickled so high, so happy by Edward's side, on a blanket in the grass, looking up at sparkling constellation shapes,

and after the lightest, softest kisses across her cheek, warm along the underside of her jaw -

he touched his fingers near her lips, parting to gather a better hold on his patience and self control.

Bella opened her eyes up to his and touched her fingers to her lips where his were still lingering. She swallowed a slow, deep breath and the slight movement of the muscles in her neck drew her true love's attention.

She could hear his reverence and his smile when he spoke.

"Tell me about your ribbon, little B?"

Though Bella cherished Edward most dearly, though she loved him more than she even knew how to say, she couldn't bring herself to confess such bad news to him, even if it was the truth.

_Especially, if it was the truth._

She turned a little and drew the tip of his finger between her lips in a small kiss as she shook her head.

"Some other time," she smiled bravely, watching his eyes, watching her.

Understanding and accepting, Edward nodded as he brought his lips to hers again, giving in to the soft feel of her open mouth and the little hums of delight that his kiss drew from her.

The deeper he kissed her, the harder her heart beat.

The harder her heart beat, the more Edward wanted to open her up and know all of her secrets.

He shifted slightly, moving more of his weight against her, his hips half on top of hers and he brushed his hand a little lower, holding her jaw, bringing the temptation of her ribbon slowly, carefully within reach.

_Just one touch._

_Just one, little, touch..._

"Can I...?" Edward trailed his request off almost as soon as he'd started making it.

Bella knew though. She was well aware of what he wanted and she wanted his touch too.

"Mhmm," she nodded, taking a deeper breath, kissing him again. "Yes," she clarified after a moment, shifting underneath the wonderful feel his weight. "You can. Please."

Curiosity that had grown into desire through the years, coursed quickly through Edward. He had to pause and swallow hard, and regather his willpower as little Bella stretched lovingly underneath him.

Tilting her head back.

Offering her neck.

Slowly, full of the most devout care and concentration, Edward slipped his left hand into her hair, underneath her head to cradle it from the ground under their blanket. Only then did he move his right hand, unhurried and unwavering, toward the neatly tied ribbon.

He touched the bow itself first, rubbing the perfectly unfrayed ends between the pad of his thumb and his fingertips before he moved closer.

"Easy," Bella Marie barely breathed, the muscle in her chest beating like crazy, terror and love, and longing twisting up inside her. "Be careful..."

"I know, baby," her love breathed back, brushing his thumb and fingers out, around and along the inside of the soft little loops of the bow.

"I know," he assured her, his no-nonsense, honest-to-God promise and pitch comforting her deepest fears.

She relaxed in his arms, letting out the smallest, most enchanted sigh as he slid his fingers further, curving his entire hand around the side of her neck.

The sound she slipped thrilled him inside. He couldn't keep from dropping his face closer to hers and nudging her head a little further back with his nose.

Bella Marie tilted with innocent instinct and Edward pressed his lips to her ribbon in the softest kiss.

Her pulse picked up and so did his, and he was so close he could hear hers. He could feel it and just barely taste it when he parted his lips, touching his top to her skin and his bottom to her silk again.

She cooed at the new sensation, at the brand new touch and feel of such perfect, prudent love somewhere she thought she'd never allow anyone near. She curled her fingers into his dress shirt to bring him closer, wanting him so much closer.

Edward answered her speechless seeking with the sweetest hum, sliding his left hand from the base of her head to the back of her neck, arching her a little higher for his affection. He trailed lightweight kisses along the right side of her neck, then the left, feeling with his warm fingers where his warmer lips gently pressed.

The fabric along the back of her neck felt so soft and fit so right against his palm. He kissed and whispered, and touched, and felt her silvery secret and soft pale skin for what seemed like hours and somehow still not long enough.

He wanted never to let go, but drew together his strength and brushed his lips just above her ribbon one last time before leaning back to be the lionhearted best friend she needed, and deserved.

"I love you, Bella Marie," he told her quietly, nudging his nose against hers, breathing truth against her lips.

"I love you," she whispered back, reaching her arms around his neck to bring her smile to his.

They spent graduation day arm in arm for the most part and their summertime hand in hand.

In the fall, they moved to university together and finally free of St. Anne's and the nice, but still so confined space of his back seat, Edward and Bella Marie were more free to share, and show, and shape their love than they ever had been.

Her roommate in the dorms, Kate, was sweet as could be, but Bella spent most of her nights on the boy's floor, in Edward's room. In his bed. Under his blankets. Safe and warm, and so happy in his arms.

His roommate, Laurent, didn't mind. He spent most of his nights in his girlfriend's room.

Between classes and exams, their first year flew by in a sensational sort of flash. They visited Sister Esme and Sister Renee over the summer, and while they were there, one morning while Bella was in the shower, Edward sought her would-be parents permission for her hand.

The two sisters had never been more glad for the girl they'd raised as their own miracle-daughter. She was on the straight and narrow toward a bright future, and a young gentleman more pure and true than they could ever have hoped for, was giving them his solemn affirmation to always care for her.

With tears of joy in their eyes, they nodded their heads and hugged him close, knowing their beloved Bella was in the very best hands.

With their consent and their blessing, Edward returned with his girl and her ribbon to university later that same day, waiting for the exact perfect moment to ask her.

It came almost a year later, long after they'd moved out of the dorms and into a small apartment together.

Bella Marie was up to her nose in books and paperwork, and so much research all around her at their small kitchen table. Hair pulled up and pinned in place by a pencil, glasses on and pajama clad legs curved criss-cross-applesauce underneath herself, she was bent over her work.

Edward had just closed the door behind himself and was setting down a bag of groceries. It had been his intention to propose in a few more weeks, on her birthday, but at the glimpse of her neck and bare shoulders, save for a dainty slip of grey and two thin white tank top straps, he found himself unable to continue waiting.

She was aware of his presence, having heard him come inside their modest home, but hadn't quite pulled herself from her thoughts or her eyes from her books when he leaned close behind her.

"I went out a-wandering, beneath an unknown sky," Edward whispered against the shell of her ear, tickling her heart. "The heavens all shook violently. You caught my eye..."

Bella let her eyes close on the medical terms that no longer held her attention. She hummed pure joy and let her head fall back onto his shoulders while her arms went up and behind herself, and almost around him.

He moved though, coming around to face her, to kiss her nose and hold her blushing cheeks in his warm hands.

"Strange fruit fell, struck me to the core," she beamed at him between kisses, giving him the next line to the song she knew by heart.

Edward took both of her hands gently in his, pulling back a little to find her eyes as he spoke again:

"My heart became a single flame. It wanted nothing more..."

Bella blushed the colour of contentment, smiling at her love as he knelt on the floor in front of her.

"What are you doing down there?" She asked, messing her fingers through his hair. "Come back up here and give me more kisses."

"Give me this first," he smiled back, holding her left hand in both of his, brushing his thumb back and forth over the top of her ring finger.

It took little Bella a moment to connect his actions. When two and two fell together in her mind, she gasped a small breath and covered her open mouth with her right hand.

Edward borrowed more lyrics as he reached into his pocket with his free hand, his right still cradling hers.

"My heart has four empty rooms," he said, turning her hand over and kissing her palm.

"Three wait for lightning..." He continued, kissing the under-curves of each of her fingers.

"And one," he pulled a small white gold ring from his pocket. The tiny diamond on it caught in the light and shined bright like Polaris for Bella to see and follow.

He took her little ring finger in his hands and held it carefully, looking up at her as he spoke the next line. He was ready to slide the slender band into place, but needed just as much as he wanted, her trust and acceptance.

"One waits for you."

Bella was beyond words. Edward's name was on her lips, the only letters her mind could begin to put together and even it she found she couldn't speak. Her happiness was so great; it was all she could do to keep from melting down into the chair and into his arms.

She blinked to bring her best friend into better focus and as she did, warm tears slipped and fell down her cheeks. She laughed as they slid against her smile and wiped them away with her free hand, shaking her head as if to apologize for losing her composure.

Edward shook his head as well, graciously grinning higher than he perhaps ever had at his overwhelmed and overflowing sweetheart.

"I love you so much, little B," he told her in his softest-strongest voice, gently taking her right hand too, holding both of hers in both of his, as if to show her the feelings he carried that he was working to put words around.

"More than anything, anywhere, ever," he continued, watching her eyes fill up, giving her truth. "You're more than everything to me and I promise with everything I have, and am, and could ever be, to never, ever let you go."

Bella Marie's heart fluttered so hard she began to shake and Edward carefully secured his hold on her hands, steadying her.

"Marry me," he asked in such a hopeful whisper, brushing comfort along her trembling hands with his thumbs. "Be my wife, my all in all, my perfect, perfect forever..."

"Yes, yes," little Bella bubbled out, grinning so high she felt it in her ears, nodding, reaching eagerly for him. "Yes, yes, yes, yes."

His laugh echoed with hers, absolutely elated pride filling all of him as he softly caught her left hand and slid the little ring into place.

"Yes, yes, yes, so much, yes," Bella sing-songed against his ear, arms around his neck and legs around his waist as he stood, and picked her up. "Yes, forever yes. Yes, yes."

So thrilled, so deep in love and so filled with unconditional trust, Bella Marie opened up completely for Edward when he carried her to their room just to kiss her _thank you, thank you so much_...

Made deliciously courageous by the little northstar-bright diamond on her finger, she worked her hands under his shirt, against his belt, breathlessly ready, keen to have and hold all of him.

The sweetness of her touch and the unwavering, innocent yearning in her eyes sent hunger pangs straight through Edward's heart, down deep into his stomach and gave him the strength he needed to go slow for her. To be careful with her. To make her shiver, and shake, and smile through sounds so pleased, so beautiful, he was certain for some moments that Heaven wasn't in the sky or on any other plane, but soft and open in their bed, wrapped warm around him, moving with him.

Blushing and bare, save for his ring on her finger, and the little ribbon around her neck.

Their engagement was lengthy and ever-romantic, both of them content to wait until they had their degrees, more than decent jobs, and a bigger home, better fit for their high spirits and fond devotion.

When the day finally came, Sister Esme and Sister Renee walked Bella down the pink rose-petaled aisle and placed each of her hands in each of Edward's.

Sealing their most honorable promises with one kiss, then another, just a little bit deeper, Edward and Bella were at last, beyond any shadow of a doubt, officially one another's.

They built their world together with love and laughter, hot summers in the sunshine and cozy winters, pressed together by their fireplace for all kinds of warmth. It was everything little Bella Marie could ever have hoped for and then some, and was the picture-perfect epitome of Edward's lifelong hopes and dreams.

In the second October of their together-life, on a Tuesday just a few weeks before Halloween, it was raining cats and dogs outside their window. Not wanting to leave the warmth of their bed for work or the world at large, Bella hit the snooze button for the third time and cuddled closer to her half-asleep husband.

"I don't want to go," she whispered into the crook of his neck, the soft scruff under his chin tickling her forehead. "I want to stay right here, all day."

Edward smiled, kissing the dream-tangled crown of her head _good morning _as he wrapped his arms and their blankets around her.

"So don't go," he answered simply, brushing his thumb softly along her hairline and down, even softer along her ribbon. "I won't go either. Stay here. Play hooky with me."

Bella giggled, nodding her head and covering his neck with sleepy-headed, lighthearted little kisses.

Taking their time, upbeat and untroubled in their special day off together, Bella showered and made a small breakfast while Edward parted from her for only a few minutes to make a run to the store.

When he returned, it was with two pumpkins and a bottle of wine, a bag of candy and a handful of black and white movies.

Blankets on the couch, Bella Lugosi and Helen Chandler on the screen, two candlelit jack-o-lanterns making their living room glow, Edward and Bella spent their day playful in love. So in love, that their phones went unanswered and the wine went untouched.

Late in the afternoon, early evening, when the sun would just have been setting if it hadn't been raining, Edward moved slowly so as not to wake his sleeping love as he stood from their blanket-made nest on the couch.

Immediately feeling his absence, Bella reached her right hand out before she lifted her eyelids, humming a small sound that asked him to return.

"I'm just going to shower," he whispered, kissing her temple, sending her safely back toward rest.

She woke again and turned onto her back when she heard the water turn off some minutes later. Stretching her limbs and breathing in a yawn, she leaned up onto her elbows, rubbing the sleep from her eyes just as Edward stepped around the hallway corner.

Dark hair barely ruffled dry and only a towel tied low on his hips, the boy that made her heart beat harder, the man she'd given everything to and would again, and again if she could, smiled his sweetest smile right at her. Needy love blossomed in her little belly and she bent both her legs, reaching her hands out for him between her pajama covered knees.

It was her way of asking him with her shy eyes and lovey-dovey-lip-bitten smile to come closer and give to her.

Bella Marie's passion empowered Edward's. What started eager and intense on the couch, he picked up and carried to their room.

With soft street lamp light filtering in through their ivory-hued curtains, the no holds barred, seventh-heaven happiness was plain as day on his wife's face. Her bliss was unbound and unequaled, and he loved her like there was no end in sight.

The deeper he moved inside her, the more shallow her breaths came.

The lighter she breathed, the more attention the little grey bow around her neck drew from him.

Slowing down, rocking with a decadently deliberate rhythm against her hips, Edward slid his left hand under her neck like he did sometimes when they made love, arching her little secret under his mouth for kisses and small, sacred touches.

The feel of his lips and teeth, and breath against her most vulnerable dip of skin and ribbon, and bone sent Bella into visceral overdrive. She arched higher under him, pushing and pulling at his arms, his shoulders, anything and everything she could do to keep a hold of him as he pushed her over the edge.

In love with the feel of her so given to pleasure at his hands, his lips, his hips, Edward reverently worked her lissome little body for more, attentive to her every sound, devoted to every fluttering heartbeat.

Close finally to his own edge, bordering on lost to the seemingly bottomless solace between them, longing that he'd shouldered for years upon years crept up his backbone and was on his lips, on her neck before he could help himself.

"Let me see you, baby," he breathed, resting his forehead against hers, taking her shallow little gasps into his own mouth with each kiss.

He wasn't asking her to tell him about the ribbon.

He wanted more.

He needed more and far away, in the hazy-back of her euphoria, Bella knew.

"Please," he asked, desperation deep, and dark, and erotic in his voice. "Let me take it off you. Let me untie you, beautiful love..."

Fear flickered awake inside her and he felt it, and pressed himself closer, determined to show her that his love was stronger than her despair.

Pleased and eased by his affection, Bella blinked her heavy eyelids open and looked up into clear blue.

She loved him, so much she loved him. He was so very everything to her and she knew in her heart of hearts that she'd found true happiness. She'd found home in him and so fulfilled, so wonderfully completed by his love, she finally, for the first time in her life, felt free.

The sensation was so all-consuming that Edward felt it too.

"There you are," he half exhaled, half groaned against her cheek, pushed to the greatest height his pleasure had ever known. "There you are. Let me take it off, baby. Let me see you..."

Reveling in the luscious feel of his devotion and her own surrender, Bella Marie nodded her head, _yes._

It was all she had to give and she was ready.

Victory rushed through Edward unlike anything he'd ever felt. He shifted his weight and brushed Bella's hair back from her face with his left hand, and angled her body by her hip with his right, opening her further for himself, pushing deeper.

He built their rhythm faster again, harder, until Bella couldn't take it, until all she felt was white hot bliss. No air. No thoughts. Just Edward, loving her.

He groaned above her, a sound that she recognized and that pushed her own heaven even higher. It was a sound that meant he was close, so close, burning at that point where it was so good it almost hurt. She knew and she wanted to be there with him.

Lifting her lashes once more to fill her eyes with the cherished sight of him working to complete her, she expected to see his eyebrows drawn together, his lips just parted, breathing hard. But the sight she looked up at just then was impossibly twice as nice.

His grin, that smirking simper she loved was curled up into his left cheek and it made her body blush from the inside. It sent her own ecstasy spinning out again and made her smile out loud, a breathless sound almost like a giggle. She shook hard and held onto him so tightly that she saw blindingly bright little stars everywhere.

Everywhere.

When she was still trembling around him, he slowed their loving. One hand at the small of her back, holding onto her as she rode out her pleasure, he moved his other into her hair, to the base of her head and the back of her neck.

He lifted her up a little, off their bed.

The feel of his palm and fingers through the slip of thin fabric resonated around her indulgence. She was so high in the sky, so without fear for the first time, that his touch felt like an echo. Surreal. Amazing. Right.

She cooed, lost, holding onto Edward as he brought his fingers around to the front of her neck, loving the dainty little bow, sliding his fingers to one of the two grey ends.

Bella Marie breathed in.

So soft.

Her heart beat.

Holding carefully to everything he'd ever wanted, Edward took the slightest pull and the grey silk gave. The sound it made, of fabric slipping against fabric, was the lightest, most magnificent sound he'd ever heard.

As the two sides of the ribbon slid free from one another, little Bella choked, purely instinctual fears immediately clamoring up. Her hands fumbled against Edward's shoulders, trying so hard to hold on, but it was no use. With the small grey bow untied, her fate was fastened.

No longer attached to her neck, Bella's head fell back and off, and landed on their pillows.

Her heart went silent.

Within what would have been its next beat, her soul came up and out of her body, and sank against Edward, crying quietly, terrified and clinging.

Moving away from their bed, Edward tilted what felt like her chin up, making her look at him.

His eyes were no longer soft blue, but black, completely black. Even what should have been white was black and his teeth behind his slightly parted lips were fangs. He was ice cold against her and there were wings too, huge, larger than life wings above and behind him, coming out of his shoulders. They were black like his eyes and spreading further than Bella Marie could see in any direction, blocking out the warm autumn street lamp light that had just surrounded them, moments before.

She didn't know if she was alive or dead, or something in between. She had no idea what was real or what was happening, just that she was so terribly frightened.

Edward looked like the devil himself but she couldn't keep from clinging to him. She was petrified of letting go, so scared that it hurt.

_Why?_ She felt herself ask, but couldn't hear her own voice. She realized then she couldn't hear anything at all save for a distant, barely-there muffled thundering sound that she could hardly make out in all the heavy silence.

When Edward chuckled in response to her question, it was the same. She felt the sound instead of hearing it.

_You don't remember, little B?_ He asked her in return.

Bella Marie shook her head, shivering against his cold stomach and chest. She felt disembodied and didn't understand how she could be hurting without having a body, but there was the most painful aching inside her that came with not knowing what he was talking about, what was going on. The blankness inside her where memories should have been, the inability to remember, pierced and burned.

The devil carrying her hummed quietly and tenderly touched what felt like her cheek. His hand felt like wintertime. The faint thundering sound echoed inside her and felt closer, and something like memories rushed at his touch.

_She was young in the place where the heavens were created, where the planets and stars were aligned, and souls were born. They both were._

_Perfect innocence and perfect wickedness._

_From across the deep, ethereal distance, she called to him, a sound like a love song. One soul to its impeccable match._

_He was too beautiful for her not to want and he wanted more than anything to have her completely, only and all to himself._

_She loved him, but his darkness frightened her so. She ached and suffered in his absence, but her fear was too great for her to give in to such depravity._

_To have her, for her to have him, she had to trust him absolutely. She had to completely surrender herself._

The thunder sound beat louder and the feelings like memories flurried closer, clearer for little Bella Marie.

_It was him, his fingers that tied the grey silk around her neck. That sought her out on Earth and made their love something she could touch and feel, and see, and hear. Something she could taste and trust._

Memories of moments ago that felt just as clear as all the others she was seeing, flashed for her.

She remembered granting him permission to untie the ribbon, giving him what she had always known inside would be the end of her life.

All that she had.

All that he wanted.

_It was him that filled her up and made her whole. That now, owned her in such a way that could never, ever be undone._

_Her soul would cling to his for eternity - immaculately soft light to sinfully pitch darkness._

As if reading her, as if her thoughts were as plain as words, the devil drew her closer to himself.

Bella Marie realized as he did so, that the thundering sound was coming from his chest and that it was the sound of her human heart, her life, beating inside him, inside damnation.

Familiar longing from lifetimes ago swirled with her terror and she felt his grip on her tighten.

What felt like her lips parted. She would have screamed if she could have, at the overwhelming weight and sharpness of love and horror inside her.

"That's it, little B," she felt him whisper, teeth at her neck, his voice so freezing cold as he moved, his wings lifting them higher and surrounding them deepest dark.

"Sing for me."


End file.
